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Missy

At the start of the process both sides expressed a wish to have made progress by now so that they could continue with the main part of negotiations around the future relationship, however, no progress has been made with both sides blaming the other. One of the biggest sticking points has been the so-called Brexit divorce bill. The EU has been inflexible in their demands of 100 billion euros, claiming that the UK haven’t been clear in what they will play and this is why they are unable to be flexible.

This week the EU negotiators were reportedly left flabbergasted when the UK negotiators launched a legal deconstruction of the so-called Brexit bill and spent 3 hours doing a line by line rebuttal of the EU’s demands. A source from the EU is reported as saying that the EU officials were flabbergasted that a young man from Whitehall was saying that the EU’s preparation on the financial settlement was inadequate. The EU prepared a four page document detailing the Brexit bill, the UK’s rebuttal was allegedly 11 pages long.

The UK’s presentation (which included 23 slides and 47 paragraphs of dense text) argued that the European Commission’s paper provided scant basis for settlement. Among the slides was a reference to a key part of Article 50 which says a member state’s withdrawal from the EU should be agreed with reference to the future relationship. The EU is refusing to discuss a future relationship until there is sufficient progress on the issues of the financial settlement, citizen’s rights, and the Northern Ireland border – all issues that the UK says cannon be settled in isolation without reference to a future relationship.

What has been shown is the limited scope the EU negotiators have in being able to negotiate, they are tied to the terms agreed to by the 27 EU nations, but there is no wiggle room for them, they are essentially expecting the UK to roll over and do what they want. Yesterday they have discovered that the UK won’t roll over.

Gezza

Gezza

Missy

There was a story that broke on Monday here which is quite worrying. A London borough (Tower Hamlets) placed a 5 year old English white Christian girl in foster care with conservative Muslim families where the wife could not speak English and would wear a Burka when out in public.

The young girl had a crucifix which the foster parents removed from her, she was stopped from eating a meal her birth mother made for her because it contained bacon, they told her to learn Arabic, and she was told white women were alcoholics, as well as being told that Easter and Christmas were stupid celebrations. The child was incredibly distressed and begged the social workers not to send her back (they did).

On Tuesday the case was in court where the judge ordered the child be sent to her Grandmother’s care, and for Tower Hamlets to hold an inquiry into this case, and a review of their social services. Before the usual suspects make any judgements about the judge, no it wasn’t an old white male, but rather a middle aged Pakistani Muslim woman. The judge concluded that the child should have been put with a family that reflected her culture and heritage, and could speak English.

There have been a lot of issues with Tower Hamlets, and it is in this Borough where a few years ago a white Christian family were removed from the list of approved foster families when a Muslim teenager who had been placed with them decided (after several years) to convert to Christianity. The Council also reportedly turn down a number of white Christian foster families because the majority of the children needing care are black or Muslim and the council states they should be placed with families from the same background. They are rightly being called out for not using that same criteria when dealing with a white Christian child.

A number of MPs have spoken out against Tower Hamlets on this case, but interestingly no senior Labour MPs have, and neither has the MP for the area (Diane Abbott).